Yup. Another one of those. Just a little, side project I'll be working on whenever my muse for my other stories is away. This fic was born out of an idea I got from revisiting an old favorite of mine, which is Jurassic Park by Telltale Games.
Believe it or not, this was the first Telltale product I played, and it's one of those games I remember fondly. There's something about Telltale's creations that always sticks with me even after years of not playing them. The story, the characters, the choices… It's a world in which Naruto Uzumaki could fit in rather well, don't you think? I can't believe this wasn't done before. So yeah, this is my rather humble attempt at fixing that up.
As with my other Telltale story, changes will be introduced gradually to the plot. Yet, contrary to what you can usually expect from me, the length of each chapter will probably be less than normal. This is just the prologue, though. Next chapters will be a bit longer, for sure, so worry not.
Finally, since there's only one season in this game, it'll be a much shorter story than 2555 Days for instance.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor Jurassic Park. I'll say this only once because you know, that will never change.
~ Prologue ~
Naruto Uzumaki was not the kind of shinobi that had the most prodigious of minds. He was by no means an idiot or lacked in the intelligence department. Quite the opposite. But as a gennin, Naruto usually preferred focusing on the bigger picture, letting some things slide off his mind if he didn't deem them worthy of attention.
Then again, if there was something Naruto had taken a liking to, was exploring and taking in the sights of every place his sensei Jiraiya, or ero-sennin as he called him, had taken him to during their training trip around the Nations.
With the exception of the other hidden villages, they had travelled around many places, the last one being a small town near the border of the Land of the Sea, where they'd decided to stop for a couple of days before moving onto a different country.
And despite his short time there, Naruto clearly recalled the town being located near a lush forest, not a jungle of all things.
The 15-year-old shinobi slapped a hand against his neck, preventing a rather annoying mosquito from feeding on his blood. He ignored the feeling of wet mud beneath him and the drizzle that kept falling over his head, and slowly picked himself up from the ground, dusting his pants. He swiveled his sapphire eyes around in the dark, inspecting his surroundings, growing more and more confused the longer he tried -and failed- to see any distinctive landmark or anything that'd have served to give him an idea of his current whereabouts.
"Oi! Ero-sennin! You…!?"
His cries were instantly muffled by the raging storm in the sky above. Thunder roared so powerfully it seemed to shake the very Earth beneath his feet, yet the jungle around would become ominously silent every time the rumbling noise of lighting vanished.
Naruto shook his head and ran under a rather thick tree, seeking to find some shelter from the incessant drizzle. Some water beads rolled down his cheeks from his wettened golden locks, but he barely paid it any mind, too engrossed as he was trying to make sense of the place he now found himself in.
'That old pervert… What could he be up to this time?', the young shinobi outwardly frowned at a sudden thought that then crossed his mind. 'I bet he dragged me away while I was sleeping so he could spend lots of time peeping on women. Ugh, he's sooo going to regret this!"
That wasn't the first time his sensei had done something of the sort. Naruto still remembered waking up in a den of very hungry wolves, which'd been inches away from tearing the flesh off his face had he not regained consciousness the moment he did. He'd been livid at the cheeky sannin, with the latter merely shrugging the whole thing off as 'a training exercise' while in reality, it'd been an excuse to keep him away for a while to focus on his research.
Needless to say, the amount of pranking Naruto had pulled on the old fart had more than made up for said incident.
And even though there were no beasts surrounding him this time, the whole jungle was not a sight he'd been expecting to behold when he woke up. Worse even, it was pretty dark around with the moon currently hidden behind the clouds above, so his vision was somewhat limited.
Still, years of training and moving about at night had granted him a particularly good eyesight, so all it took was a bit of chakra to enhance his vision. While he could not see everything, it did grant him the ability to have a clearer picture of the place around him.
"I guess I should do some exploring. Maybe I'll run into ero-sennin while I'm at it."
The prospect of getting some payback at the old man for leaving him alone in unknown whereabouts did help to improve his mood a bit – the blond was already thinking of ways to get back at his old master as he left the cover of the tree, heading off in a random direction.
It didn't take long for the storm to abate and the soft rain to cease, something for which Naruto was grateful, as the dense flora around him already made it difficult enough for him to move around. Then again, he'd been tromping around the jungle for a few minutes now and so far, he'd not seen anything noteworthy. Some bugs and nightly birds had taken advantage of the lack of rain to come out of their hiding spots, signalling their presence with critters, singing, whistling and other sounds that echoed through the not so empty area.
Occasionally, Naruto would hear rather strange noises coming from somewhere not so far away from his position. They were loud, hissing sounds which seemed to reverberate all around and sent shivers down his spine every time his eardrums were hit by them. Though whatever was it that was acting as the source of said noise, it didn't seem to be in the vicinity.
He was briefly entertaining the thought of heading towards the noises to investigate when he came across a massive, metallic fence that prevented him from going any further on foot. "What's this?", he asked no one in particular, growing curious at the rather thick wires that ran along the fence and the huge sign directly to his left. It had the number 20000 above some words written next to a drawing of a hand being struck by lightning.
Naruto furrowed his eyebrows at the sign. For some reason, he couldn't make its meaning out. Apart from the '20000', the words were written in a language he'd never seen in his whole life. Definitely not Hiragana, Katakana or Kanji.
He stared at them for a while longer before giving up, realizing he'd not be able to decipher their significance. One quick glance the way of the drawing told him it was some kind of warning, one that should not be ignored.
Shrugging, the blond decided he'd had enough of just standing around and crouched down, before propelling himself up and over the fence in one motion, landing safely on the other side. The moment he did so, his eyes caught sight of a man-made road just up ahead, where the jungle parted.
"Finally!", he grinned. "I bet I'll quickly find my way around once I'm out of this-"
Right then, a bone-chilling howl prevented Naruto from finishing his sentence, and immediately made him whip his head in the direction he'd just heard it. Diverting his chakra from his eyes to his ears, Naruto stood still, trying to be as quiet as he possibly could.
A moment later, he heard a high-pitched scream which made him widen his eyes.
"What the…?"
Naruto only hesitated for a brief moment, before his legs propelled him upto the nearest branch, and he started jumping from tree to tree, already on the way to help whoever was it that'd gotten into trouble.
As he drew closer and closer to his target, his heightened sense of hearing picked up the sound of ragged breathing, and of leaves crunching beneath quick feet - all belonging to whom he believed was a woman. She seemed to be in a hurry to get away from someone, or something, that was probably chasing them.
Narrowly managing to push aside a rather long branch that threatened to smack him across the face as he landed on another branch, Naruto was startled to hear low, ominous hisses coming from somewhere nearby.
He tried scanning the area from above as he continued on his path, and that's when he saw it.
White glowing eyes, staring back at him from below. They vanished a second later, only to reappear further ahead almost immediately – low, threatening snarls reveaed those eyes belonged to some kind of living being, one that clearly didn't like Naruto. An ominous feeling washed over him as he picked up the pace, inwardly wondering what animal, or creature, had eyes that glowed in the dark.
Whatever those things were, to Naruto they seemed anything but friendly.
The blond tried putting some distance between the creatures so as to get to the running woman first, hopefully to protect her from harm and maybe get some directions once he'd made sure she was out of harm's way.
Soon enough, the Uzumaki was forced to crouch to a stop as he noticed he was now standing on the last tree's branch. The path ended abruptly on a rather steep cliff, which overlooked a deep valley below.
Seeing no other way but to drop down, Naruto did so, landing silently by the edge of the cliff. He glanced left and then right, looking for the woman who'd not long ago headed this way.
"Heeey! Anyone around? I'm here to help!"
Him shouting at the top of his lungs was a stupid idea and he knew so, but when things didn't work out the way he first expected them to, Naruto had no issue dropping caution to the wind. Especially if it got him what he wanted.
But nobody replied to his calls. At least, nobody that could be considered human.
"…"
A cacophony of snarls reverberated directly behind him, and Naruto froze in place. His body tensed as he produced a kunai from his holster, only then daring to move his head so as to look over his shoulder, albeit in a painfully slow manner.
Hidden in the thick darkness covering the jungle, Naruto saw a myriad of noticeably big glowing eyes, all gazing at him from behind bushes. The sound of plants rustling suddenly reached his ears, and it was thanks to his instincts screaming at him to move that he barely managed to move out of the way and rapidly slash his kunai in return, feeling it graze something that'd moved dangerously close to his position.
A short, pained hiss was the first indicator Naruto got he'd actually hit the target. Next, he watched as the creature stumbled and fell to the ground, quickly pulling itself up and running into the jungle a moment later.
But as it did so, the glowing eyes got closer, and even in the dark, Naruto was finally able to distinguish the shape of the bodies they belonged to.
"What are these things?", he mumbled to himself, twisting his kunai in his hand. Even if they were still hiding away from view, the creatures were now closing in on him, seemingly seeking for a chance to catch him off guard.
Naruto got into a fighting position. "All right, if you wanna fight, then bring it on!", the blond challenged, grinning in determination despite being clearly outnumbered. "I'm not going anywhere, you temes!"
"¡Ayu… Ayuda!"
"Huh?"
Despite his promise not to back down, suddenly hearing the weak, yet distinctive voice of a woman coming from somewhere down below made Naruto pause and glance back.
He didn't see anything at first sight in the dark, but with some unknown creatures on the brim of attacking him, Naruto was only able to spare a second or two before turning his attention back to the front.
"Kuso! Well, I suppose I don't have much choice. Kage bunshin no jutsu!"
Five clones popped up in front of Naruto, and the original was able to hear confused noises emitted by the creatures, who seemed to take a momentary step back at the sight of more human beings appearing from nowhere.
"Oi, you five! Take care of those guys for me, will ya? I've got someone that needs my help!"
"Ossu, boss!"
"Leave it to us!"
"Yeah! We'll teach 'em a lesson they'll never forget!"
Giving his clones an appreciative nod, Naruto turned around and jumped down the cliff, using the steep earth formation to slide towards ground level.
No sooner had he done that, a fight broke out above, with his clones shouting and screaming as they battled the creatures. Midway, one of his shadow copies didn't react in time and was pounced on by one of the monsters, dispelling a moment later.
The memories that then hit Naruto's brain managed to astonish him just as he reached the bottom of the cliff, where he saw the unconscious figure of a tanned woman.
Whatever those things were, the Uzumaki was sure he'd never seen anything like them before.
Gerry Harding checked the time on his watch.
It was currently 7:10PM.
Which could mean only one thing.
"Aaaaand we are officially late."
By his side, his daughter, Jessica, shrugged her shoulders, refusing to look his way. "I was ready when you said, dad", she retorted. "I just couldn't find my CD player…"
Despite the fact they were already behind schedule, Gerry mustered a small, albeit sincere smile. "It's fine, sweetheart. They won't leave without us."
"Us?", Jessica perked up at that, looking hopeful about something in particular. "Does that mean you're coming with me to Dallas?"
"Just to the mainland, dear. I can drive you to the airport, if you'd like."
"Ah, cool, I guess."
Gerry let out a silent sigh at their rather short exchange. He could tell Jessica was not so enthused over the prospect of leaving Isla Nublar and going back to her mother in Dallas. She'd only been at the complex for a few days as a visitor, and even though she'd gotten a privilege not many people would get before the park opened, it was clear she'd been hoping to spend the rest of her holidays there.
After all, she had only seen a few of the dinosaur species contained within the island. Granted, some of the areas were still not entirely safe and/or open to visit, so some of the dinos enclosures were off limits for the time being.
Gerry glanced at his daughter through the rearview mirror, and saw her staring absently through the window. There was a dejected look on her face that he knew very well.
"After the park opens, there'll be a lot more to see", Gerry suddenly said, trying to cheer Jessica up a bit. "You can come for a visit then!"
"Okay. That sounds cool."
An awkward silence once again took over the interior of the car. The older man didn't really know what else to say so as to improve Jessica's mood, so he settled for focusing on the road for the time being.
The skies were finally clearing and the full moon was now able to shed some light over the island. The sounds of distant thunder could still be heard every now and then, but things were definitely much quieter than half an hour ago.
As Gerry drove down the service road leading to the docks, they passed by one of the electrical fences that kept the dinosaurs from leaving their enclosures, and the man noted the lights at the top were off for some reason. 'Hm… Strange. Those should always be on…', he decided to keep his thoughts to himself, not wanting to worry his daughter over nothing. The most likely scenario was that the lights indicating the flow of electricity had been short-circuited by lighting from the storm.
Looking down for a moment, Gerry tried to put some music on the radio, but all they got was interference and static, forcing him to turn it off a moment later.
No other choice then.
"Hey, Jess, listen", Gerry didn't want to make his daughter uncomfortable, but there was something he'd been meaning to speak with her. Something he'd originally planned to address after they got back to the mainland. "I know I've been working so hard… And, we really haven't had much chance to talk since you got here."
"Uh oh."
Judging by the tone of her voice, it seemed as if she knew where this was going. Though that wouldn't make it any less awkward than Gerry believed it would be.
Then again, it was something he needed to address sooner or later. As her father, it also fell on him to make sure she stood on the right path in life.
"Jess. Your mum told me about the…", he paused, glancing at his little girl out the corner of his eyes, "the shoplifting."
Almost immediately, Jessica whipped her head around, a barely concealed panicked look crossing her features for a second or two.
"I… I was just fooling around! I didn't even take anything good", she said nonchalantly, as if what she'd done had merely been a trivial thing. "What did she say?"
Gerry shook his head. He could practically hear the worry in her voice at the mention of her mother. The relationship between them was not exactly on great terms at the moment, and apart from the shoplifting matter, he knew what some of the other reasons for that were.
"Listen, Jess, I get that it mustn't be easy for you. Your mum likes things under control. She can be… dramatic, sometimes", he conceded. "But in this case, she has a pretty good reason to feel that way."
"I know, I know", Jess hung down her head in shame. "I'm just a screw-up."
"No, no honey, that's not what I meant at all", Gerry interjected, turning his blue eyes her way in a hurry. He didn't want her to think that way at all. "What I wanted to say was that I know how hard…"
"DAD, WATCH OUT!"
Whipping his head in the direction of the road once again, Gerry had only time to gasp before the rapidly approaching sight of two people standing in the middle of the path was illuminated by the headlights. The man cursed under his breath and slammed his foot on the brakes, honking on the car's horn to try and warn the unsuspecting people before it was too late.
The lights quickly revealed the curious figure of a teenage boy with spiky blond hair, staring dumbly at the approaching car while carrying an unconscious woman on his back. Gerry ignored Jessica as she shut her eyes in fear and focused on praying with all his heart he would be able to stop in time.
Which he did, though the teenager merely stood still and continued to stare at the car now inches away from him with a weirdly silent look on his face.
Gerry frowned at the unresponsive boy who didn't look a year older than 15, getting out the car a moment later.
"Dammit, kid! What's wrong with you? Why didn't you move out of the way? You could have gotten hurt!"
His words had no effect other than to break the blond teen out of his daze and make him swivel his deep sapphire eyes in his direction, tilting his head in apparent confusion.
"What are you doing here, anyway?", the man questioned, curiosity swelling up inside him. "Are you one of Hammond's guests?"
"Ha… mon?", the kid repeated slowly, tentatively, as if unsure of what the word meant.
"Uhm, dad? Who's that?"
"Jess, stay in the car. I'll be right there", Gerry's tone left no room for argument, and he was secretly pleased at seeing his usually rebellious daughter doing as he said for a change. He turned back to the blond, seeing him now looking in the direction of Jessica with curious eyes. "Yes, Hammond. The man who created the park. Was he the one who brought you to the Island?"
His words once again made the strange kid frown and shake his head, before he allowed his lips to part. He spoke in a strange language Gerry was unfamiliar with, but one he guessed had to be Asian if the way it sounded was anything to go by.
"Ah, a foreign guest. Great. I sure wish doctor Wu was around; he could have probably been able to translate."
Gerry was about to offer the boy a ride to the ship leaving for the mainland, when he finally noticed the woman the blond was carrying on his back, and his expression shifted from one look of frustration to one of worry.
He didn't even need to ask the question that then formed on his mind, as the foreigner seemed to have picked on where the older man's eyes were fixated and was soon trying to explain the problem to him.
"…!"
"I'm sorry, I don't understand."
The boy frowned. He looked at Jessica who merely averted her gaze the moment his sapphire orbs fell on her, making the former groan aloud.
He quickly gave up on trying to verbalize the issue and instead carefully placed the unconscious woman on the ground before Gerry.
The moment he did so, the older man's eyebrows shot up.
"Is… she dead?", he heard Jessica wondering from the car, pulling her head out the window to look at the woman.
Gerry didn't respond right away, choosing to do a quick check-up before coming up with a proper diagnosis. He knelt down beside her, checking her pulse by the neck. He almost heaved a sigh of relief at realising there was one, thankfully. "She's alive", he then said, loud and clear for everyone to hear. "She's breathing."
The man rose his eyes so that he could look into the clearly distraught teenager's ones.
"What happened to her?", he tried making hand gestures to get the message across, aware of the young man's inability to comprehend. "Where did you find her?"
Gerry knew he was probably just wasting his breath, but he still felt the need to try and communicate with the teen. After all, he was the only one that knew what'd happened to the woman before him.
The blue-eyed adolescent seemed to get what Gerry was getting at, as he quickly nodded, curving both hands in the shape of claws before his face. He then adopted a strange pose that, under different circumstances, would have gotten a chuckle or two out of the man and his daughter, but that at the moment served to give Gerry an idea of what he was trying to represent.
"Raawr!"
Despite his poor attempts at producing a convincing snarl, the blond did manage to illustrate what had transpired by also pretending to bite one of the woman's arms. Both actions were quickly processed by Gerry and his daughter, but it was the former who quickly widened his eyes in response.
"She was bitten?"
"Bitten?", Jessica repeated aloud, growing a bit scared. "Did a dinosaur do it?"
Gerry shook his head fervently. "No no, that's impossible. Unless she actually got inside one of the dens, no dinosaur could have ever gotten to her."
He really believed that. The park was as secure as it gets, and it was specifically designed to contain the gigantic lizards at all times no matter what. Plus, getting into one of the enclosures was virtually impossible without the person trying it getting electrocuted to death.
All those beliefs were put to the test when the young teen raised an arm before Gerry's face, showing him the rather nasty bite that she sported on her arm.
"My God…"
"¡Ojos! ¡Me persiguen!"
Both the teen and Gerry were startled by the sudden outburst of the woman, who momentarily opened her eyes wide, showing blood tinted sclera and yellowish irises. The eyes moved about in a frenzy, not really focusing on the face of the man in front of her, before she fell back once again, half-conscious.
The blond muttered something under his breath, turning to the older man with a worried look on his juvenile visage.
"…She needs urgent medical attention", Gerry resolved. His expression turned somewhat somber at the thought of having to turn back now, but as a doctor himself – a vet with some knowledge on the human field – he couldn't abandon someone who needed assistance. "The car's got some first aid supplies we can use to stabilize her."
Once again, the boy before him failed to understand what he was being told, but he nodded his head anyway. It seemed as though he'd realized Gerry was someone that could help her.
"Jess, were you serious when you said you could drive a stick?"
The question seemed to catch his daughter off guard, but she quickly inclined her head in confirmation. "Oh! Y-Yeah, I can do it", she told him. "Mum doesn't know, but-"
"That's all right, sweetheart. Just…", he gave her a serious look, "get yourself up front. We'll be relying on you."
"Okay", she smiled confidently. But then, her pale blue eyes shifted in the way of a silent teen who was now trying to see if there was anything he could do for the agonizing woman. "What about him?"
"Him?", Gerry blinked. "He's coming with us, of course. I'm not about to let some kid behind."
He offered said blond a smile, one he returned after a second or two. He was about to ask for his name, when the group heard growling coming from somewhere up the road, effectively postponing any attempts at making small talk. They turned their heads in the opposite direction just in time to see something running across the path; a sight that made Gerry grow tense and Jess to gasp silently.
The other teen carefully stood up and drew a small blade, surprising the Hardings. He said something in that strange language of his, and whatever was going through his mind, it gave Gerry the feeling he didn't want to stick around to find out.
"…I think that's our cue to get out of here. C'mon, kid, help me get her to the car."
To be continued…
If you've never played the game, don't fret. You'll be able to understand most of what's going on by just reading on. Also, next time we'll get to see Naruto fighting two massive dinosaurs. As a warning, I've got to say I suck at writing fighting scenes, but I'll do my best. I like stepping out of my comfort zone as a writer and try my hand at other things.
By the way, Jessica is 15 in this story, and so is Naruto. Just a little change I made to match their ages. (She's 14 in the game).
Please, let me know what you think! As always, your support is greatly appreciated.
Luke.